A recent Science Advances paper, lead by group members Harrison Smith and Hyunju Kim, was just featured in ASU Now. The press release titled "ASU scientists study organization of life on a planetary scale" gives a beginner-friendly overview of their work related to the identification of general organizing principles across all biology.

Network representation of global biochemistry

The full press release can be found here:https://asunow.asu.edu/20190131-asu-scientists-study-organization-life-planetary-scale

Several members of our team are in Tokyo visiting the Earth-Life Science Institute at Tokyo Tech for their symposium on "Comparative Emergence"! The full agenda for the meeting is here: https://symposium.elsi.jp/

Sara Walker spent the day filming with the World Science Foundation's World Science Scholars Program, developing a course on "Life as the Next Frontier in Physics" for a group of high school students with exceptional math talent. The course will go live in February!

Congratulations to Dr. Harrison Smith who successfully defended his PhD dissertation titled "Biochemical Networks Across Planets and Scales"! We are so proud of Dr. Smith and are looking forward to seeing the exciting work he will produce at his new position as a research scientist at the Earth-Life Science Institute at Tokyo Tech where he starts in 2019!

The press release for our recent Physical Review Letters paper by Daniels et al. is now live on ASU Now. In addition to summarizing the results, the article emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the team and the sheer breadth of the study. The full press release can be found here.

With astrobiology finally established as an interdisciplinary discipline, it is important that the field agrees on what the most important goals and technologies are for the future. To this end, a group of professional astrobiologists, including Sara Walker, recently published a consensus report detailing the goals of the field and what is required to achieve them. This report will feed into the National Academies' two decadal surveys that inform NASA's agenda.

The report emphasizes the utility of systems-level thinking for astrobiology questions, as well as the need to consider planets as an integrated whole and habitability on a continuous spectrum (rather than a binary yes/no). More details can be found in the popular press release and the consensus report.

Soon-to-be postdoc Harrison Smith has accepted a job offer from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) in Tokyo, Japan starting early 2019. He plans to continue research on topics related to astrobiology and the origin of life. Huge congrats to Harrison!!

What is life? How did life arise from non-life? What did life look like at its origin?

​Big Biology is a podcast that tells the stories of scientists tackling some of the biggest unanswered questions in biology. Tune into Episode 9 of the podcast to hear hosts Art and Marty talk with Sara walker about how life might have arisen on Earth and why biologists and physicists should work together to find a theory of life.